Barn! *

We got home from work tonight and this is what we found:


Yes, this is our bathroom. Or was. Turns out the almost a hundred years old wooden windowsill was rotting and let water seep into the wall. The whole thing has to be broken apart, let dry and re-covered. Later in the week they'll have to re-tile the new wall, put on the grout and seal it. And it's going to be a few days before I can use my lovely shower. Barn!

It's tragic, really. You see - I love my showers more than is probably natural. I think the shower is man's greatest invention. Think about it: you can get a warm one on a cold winter day after you've been rain soaked and three cars in a row raced past you into a puddle. You can take a cold one when the temperatures outside go three digit. You can take one after a long sweaty workout (or a military kitchen duty - trust me, that's shower ever), or as a short, quick refresher before you head out for a night on the town. Seriously, showers are great.

I'm certainly guilty of liking my showers a tad too much. My dad and husband will agree. I'm a good environmentalist, but I really have a hard time cutting my showers short. If I don't get my morning shower, no amount of coffee will save the day. If we run out of hot water in October I'll still take one. I even braved the crowds and jail-house conditions in my basic training camp ("Julis", no less) to get one. Like I said, I love my showers.

So you see, not being able to take one until roughly Friday makes Michal super cranky. We'll have to go to the gym earlier all week to grab some running water. I wonder just how bad my hair can get in four days (I'm not optimistic). But hey, I am trying to look on the bright side - at least we still have running water.
Knock on wood, hamsa-hamsa, and thank goodness neither of the cats is even remotely black.

^* In case I neglected to mention this before, I curse like a sailor. But I work in a fairly PG language environment, so I have to improvise. "Crackers!" or "Holy crackers!" have been my favorites so far, but I started using "Barn!" lately, and I'm having a blast with it.
You do know what I really want to say though, right?

7.25 UPDATE:
The shower is back in action! It's filthy as all hell, but I can actually take a shower in my own apartment now. Phew! Sanity restored. Just in time.

Holly crackers!!!

Go watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog! It should be free for only a little longer, but then you can buy it on iTunes.
And you probably should. Independent film making should be supported.


And of course, if you're up for some Hollywood film making that should also be supported, go see The Dark Knight. If you can get your paws on some tickets, that is.

Now, that's something you don't hear every day...

Did I ever tell you I got sneezed on by a giraffe? Well, I was. Really.

It was the summer of 1996 and we went to Kenya for my sister's Bat Mitzva (awesome! Warmly recommended). We finished a week long safari tour and has some time to kill in Nairobi while we were waiting for our flight to the Seychelles (very warmly recommended), so our tour guide suggested we go to this rescue where they save orphaned baby wildlife and have plenty of giraffes too. We were game (yes, pun intended) so we drove out of the city to the orphanage.
As soon as we got in, we saw this wooden tower, surrounded by giraffes who were being fed by the visitors and staff. My sister and I were on top of it before you could say "zebra". We were feeding the giraffes for quite a while. They eat those giant pellets, the size of a golf balls, which you kind of have to toss to them because darn - giraffe teeth sure are big, and I'm not quite sure they're smart enough to remember they're vegetarians when they're hungry. Giraffes are funny creatures, they're lips have fur on the inside parts too, which makes them look like puppets. And they were hungry, they shoved their faces as far as they could into the tower balcony where we were standing to get more pellets tossed at them.
My sister was in a feeding frenzy, my mom was busy video taping us, and I can't remember what I was doing (talking to them, probably) when all of a sudden I heared a very large, very close "ha-tchooooooooo!" and the left side of my face got quite wet...
It's like, that scene from "Jurassic Park", only by a mammal. Remember that one?

Anywho, last night I checked out Cute Overload, and burst into hysteric laughter.


I don't know if that's "my" giraffe, but it sure is the orphanage we went to.

If this story made you laugh - good! It sure was meant too.

A million different things

Yeah, a lot is going on chez nous lately, a lot of the "I need to think about it" kind of things. I really can't seem to be able to wrap my head around one thought and come to a solid conclusion. I can't seem to even agree on, start, work on and finish one single project. So I guess it's going to be yet another random post, eh?

- Thanks for the kind words about Max. I was crying for a whole week, and still choke up about him being gone every once in a while. It's strange how, considering what a zoo we're running, this quite (well, after he was fed his snacks) little guy is so badly missed, and what a huge hole his death tore in my heart. Poor little guy...

- On a more cheerful note, my little garden is doing super well (shocking, I know). One of my tomato plants is in full bloom, and if the pests let us, we'll have some tomatoes this summer! Yum. Since I wrote about it last, I had to rip out my entire lettuce box and the radishes box because the buggers started munching on them already. They seem to have forgotten about them this time around (knock on wood). Maybe the heat is as bad to them as it is to us. Either way, I have enviro-human friendly extermination plans. I'll try them out and let you know how it goes.

- After a long, grueling search, I finally bought me some new shoes:
It's a great pair of Naturalizer Ganache. I have an expensive taste, what can I say... The cool thing about them is that Ant spotted a tiny stain on them, hardly visible, and got me an extra 15% off (he's indeed a keeper, and can you believe he's actually gone shoe shopping with me? Wow... I hardly have patience for myself when I go shopping...). Not so cool? That I decided to wear them right away for another two and a half hours of cruising the Glendale Galleria and the Americana, on a hot day without any protective socks. Ouch...
Alas, this purchase will not tame my burning desire for these beauties. Did I ever mention I have an expensive taste?

- I've gone back to cooking, with a real vengeance. We've been trying to eat healthier these past couple of months, less processed, less "something out of a bag" (probably helped that Ant got rid of the microwave when we moved), as much organic as we can reasonable afford. My parents' last years' birthday present of some quick dishes cook books has been very useful (thanks, folks!), for recipes and inspiration. I even decided to give tofu a second chance (but not broccoli, that's never going to happen, mark my words). And when I discovered the Veganomicon (via Anna. Thanks Anna!), besides the geeky giggles, I knew I hit gold. Then Amazon did one of those tricks when it reads your mind and presto - The Joy of Vegan Baking and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World somehow ended up in my shopping cart. How did Amazon know I've been searching for baking recipes egg-allergic people can eat? True magic.


Ant's never had a cupcake in his life (or a birthday cake, but that's a whole other tragedy), so he really wasn't getting my giddiness over the cupcake book. For my first attempt, I decided not to go all nuts, and made a basic chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting (except for dying half of it a orange and swirling it our toothpaste style). I swear he must have thought I was crazy, but after scarfing down his second, he summed it up like so: "Interesting... It's like a cake - but SMALLER". Yep, now he got it.

And by all accounts, he's totally hooked too, because he had no objections when I asked to go shopping for the above icing supplies, extracts, natural food dyes and colored sugar sprinkles. You're all over to the dark side now, babe. Mwha ha ha...

- Last weekend I made yet another attempt at putting the way ideas in my head on paper in some organized fashion, so I cut swatches from all my garment fabrics and put them in one of my many scribble notebooks, with some sketched and ideas as to what they will become (eventually, hopefully, one day). I'm pretty proud of myself. Now, If I can actually get some sewing done that will be nice...





The above stripy pink and red number is what I'm working on right now, but it's a whole other (horror) story for a whole other (lengthy) post.

- We're completely in love with our neighbors' dog Duncan. He's a Basset Hound, which we love anyway, but he's also the friendliest, drool-iest, floopy-est big footed puppster you've ever seen. He always come to greet us when we see him around the complex, and he's always up for a belly rub. If we were meaner people, we'd totally steal him. Totally.

- And since you haven't seen the cats in quite a while, here are some new feline photos for your viewing pleasure (courtesy of Ms. Pampered-Face Suki, who recently has been giving us the stink-eye every time we dare ask for her royal attention):


I'm actually bening sneaky with these pictures, as they also showcase our finally-finished bedroom (can you believe we've been living here for more than six months already?). The picture on the wall is this Matte Stephens piece. We also have this one hanging, but you can't see it in the photo.



Behold, a rare moment of feline domestic bliss:



See ya around!